The speaker units on the wireless Bluetooth headphones are made from recycled Ninja Tune vinyl.
2020 was a difficult year, but it also blessed us with some outstanding new studio equipment releases. As we prepare for 2021, we take a look back at some of the best releases of the last 12 months, picking out our favourites.
The iconic record label teams up with one of the leading Eurorack brands to create a hugely inspiring hardware effect unit.
Matt Anniss tracks down pioneering downtempo producer Riz Maslen to discuss her 1996 debut album, one of the standout releases on Ninja Tune’s long dormant NTone offshoot.
Ciara once sang: “when it comes to love I’m like a surgeon,” which seemed like a pretty bizarre statement on the surface. Surgeons may be bound by the directive to do no harm, but operating tables are not usually thought of as romantic places. However, something about that phrase sticks in my mind when listening to Discreet Desires from Helena Hauff, a surgeon in her own right. Spending time with the Hamburg based selector’s debut album gives one the feeling that you are being precisely manipulated throughout – your nerves tweaked, your serotonin levels flushed with a tactful incision to the gastrointestinal tract.
A raft of marquee albums from Helena Hauff, DJ Richard, and Kahn, Gantz, and Commodo was complemented by fine 12″ releases from Different Fountains, John Roberts, L.I.E.S. and more.
The first in a series of collaborative albums from Kevin Martin’s group features the Austrian artist.
The Hamburg-based artist will release Discreet Desires in September through Werkdiscs / Ninja Tune.
Universe will arrive through Ninja Tune in July and features contributions from Kutmah and fLako.
Romare’s debut LP is a reminder that sampling is an art, not a privilege. It’s also a statement that dance music doesn’t have to be soulless, offering up something that feels far more believable than the glossy, impersonal production that’s come to signify so many contemporary club tracks. Projections may borrow from the voices of others, but tracks aren’t just treated as an opportunity to shoehorn samples in; instead they’ve been put together as complex, musical palimpsests.
The Hamburg artist will release the five-track Lex Tertia EP next month.
The Los Angeles-based artist will debut with the “nocturnal fonque” of Wild Hearts next month with an album to follow.
Releases from Umor Rex, Golf Channel, Lux Rec and more all made the grade in November.
Veteran UK artist Steve Spacek crafted the forthcoming Modern Streets “largely using iPhone and iPad apps”.
The Vapor City project will be brought to a close with a final 10-track album on Ninja Tune in November.
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There’s always a certain sense of expectation that comes with firing up a Kevin Martin recording for the first time. It’s not simply a presumption of great things (which, depending on your taste, is generally a given), but more a prediction that heavy emotional weight and nerve-shattering experiences lie just around the corner. In any one of his many mighty endeavours, Martin has always gone the extra mile in punching through to the absolute core of the listeners psyche, channelling the physicality of soundsystem culture and the visceral rush of noise and matching it with a devilish ear for the uneasy and haunting. He’s not one for solely darkside behaviour though, as demonstrated in his taste for divine female vocalists in amidst his crushing constructions (ok maybe not Warrior Queen), and so an album title such as Angels & Devils promises a tussle between good and evil, the sacred and profane, on a biblical scale.
Drew Lustman has always seemed like a man blessed with more musical ideas than he knows what to do with. A cursory trawl through the now sprawling FaltyDL discography seems to confirm this assumption. After starting life making skittish, off-kilter bass music informed by jungle, garage and early British rave music, Lustman settled on a style that delighted in confounding expectations. His first two albums, both released on Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu imprint, were particularly thrilling, offering vivacious, often kaleidoscopic blends of styles shot through with a rush-inducing dedication to dancefloor release.